There can hardly be any two opinions about the gtisen of out­age. Humanity is being aunted by the spectre of a great catas trophe. Ominous shadows of war are hovering over our heads. Bit­ter feuds and bloody convulsions have torn the very fibre of socie­ty: people have been uprooted, ruined, mutilated and annihilated by devastating wars, coming in rapid succession. World has be­come a huge hunting ground, an arena for competing barbarisms. Leaders and their followers, all are at their wits’ end, groping about in the dark. They stand bewildered and aghast, in the midst of doubt and confusion. How true these lines of Arnold seem to be:

“Wandering between two worlds, one dead

The other powerless to be born,

With nowhere yet to rest their head.”

All the great philosophers of his­tory are agreed that night has set over the western civilization. They are unanimous in viewing our times as the end of the wes­tern civilization. Oswald Spengler, Nikolia Danilevsky, Arnold J. Toynbee, Pitirim A. Sorkin, Walter Schouberet, N. Berdyaev, A. Kroeber, F.S.C. Northrop, Al­bert Schweitzer, J. J. Saunders, Lewies Mumford, Fulton J. Sheen, all explicitly describe our times as the period of one of the greatest transitions from one civilization or cultural super system to a diffe­rent one. No one believes in the survival value of the Modern Civilization which has spelled dis­aster on an unprecedented scale.

A study of the history of civi­lisations and philosphy of history further reveals that ethical re­naissance and religious revival alone have arrested the decay of civilisation. Dying cultures have survived only by a religious trans figuration. Ethical movements alone have saved tottering cultu­res. The emergence of the Bud­dhist reverence for life, of the Stoic ethical upsurage in Greece, of the religious renaissance in the early Rome, the rise of Islam and the contemporary pacifism, M.R.A., Christian Socialism and a host of similar ethical move­ments of the dying western ci­vilisation are a few instances in point. Same is the verdict of all great philosphers of history.

P.A. Sorokin epitomises their views as follows:-

Spengler contends that the last “civilisation” phase of a high culture is marked by an Emergence and growth of the “Second religlousity”, which ser­ves as a passage to tire emergence of a new high culture and its new “spring-phase”.

“Toynbee states that in the last phase of civilization there emer­ges the “universal church” and a new religion which ushers in a new civilization dominated the new religion in its period of childhood or growth. My study (i.e. the study of P.A. Sorokin — K.A. ) of the succession of the supre systems during some thirty- five centuries of the Greto-Mino- an; Creto-Myeenacan, Graeco- Roman and Western European Cultures and Hindu cultures have shown likewise that in all obser­ved cases, after the decline of the Sensate supersystem (i.e. Secular materialistic, amoral and purely this-worldly—K.A.) a new idea­tional (religious) supersystem becomes dominant.”

Spengler’s “second religious­ity,” Toynbee’s “universal church” ushering in a new religious phase of-a new civilization, Berdyaev’s new “Medieval” culture succeed­ing the declined “Humanistic- secular”, Schoubert’s “new Mess­ianic prototype”—all these con­cepts are similar, Kroeber also states that often, “…after science and philosphy had been their ac­tive source, religion once more becomes important.” (Configura­tions of Culture Growth, P. 803).

Thus on this point all the theories seem to be in an essen­tial agreement as to a new Ideational-Religious super system sup­planting the declined Senate — or “disentigrating” phase of a dying civilization. (See Social Philosphies in an Age of Revolution).

The author concludes that. “Notwithstanding the difference in the details and interpretations, almost all the writers considered agree on the revival of ethical movements in the last phase of the declining super system of civiliza­tion.”

This is a fundamental histori­cal truth. When, in the light of this principle, we view the con­temporary world, we come to the conclusion that religion alone can give the world a new civilization Nearly all the philosophers of history prophesy that the com­ing civilization will be Religiously Ideational (Demilovesky, Spengler, Toynbee, Shubart, Berdyaev and Sorokin) or Integrat as a synthesis of the Asthetic-Theoratic (Northrop) of the Yoluntarlstically-Ethical and Rational (Schweitzer) or purely religious and Theistic (Fulton J. Sheen). In short, the coming civilization is going to be basically different from that which has been do­minant over the world during the last six centuries. It is also in­teresting to know that:

“All the writers agree that with the end of the dominant old and the emergence of the dominant new culture, a shift is taking place from the geographical cen­tre, and from the nation or na­tions that were the old super – system locale to a new nation or nations. Since Western Europe was the centre of the dying cul­tural super system, the new civi­lization must emerge elsewhere” (Social Philosophies in an Age of Revolution : P. 298).

They are a pointer to the future. If the clouds of destruction are to dissipate, if the sorrows of man are to be lightened, if the curse of war is to be lifted off the borows of mankind,’ if civilization is to survive—the light of religion must dawn and it must be rea­lized that fear of God and rever­ence for moral values alone can arrest the downward march of humanity and that Divine Reve­lation alone can offer the bridle that will control our passions and the light that will guide our steps. —And wherefrom can we have that light excepting the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be on him!)? Islam is a complete code of life—a mo­ral order, a social scheme, a po­lity and a cultural force. In its scheme of life, nothing is lacking, nothing is superflous. Its effi­ciency as a culture-producing fac­tor is beyond any shadow of doubt. The pages of history bear testimony to the fact that it gave a new face to civilization and a golden era to history. Its prin­ciples are as modern as the to­morrow morn and they can, even today, herald a new era in the life of humanity.

The current of history is mov­ing towards this system of life— a system which humanity is cea­selessly searching.— The Mater­ialistic civilization has chained man down to unnatural ways of life and has sapped his soul. Is­lam can give man a new lease of life. It gives the message of truth and ‘ justice which steals into the heart. It can liberate man from tile iron shackles of fulse gods, it can bring a revolution in the hearts and souls of human beings. It can usher in an er of peace and prosperity. It can bracket power with virtue and tamper strength with justice. I can fill the dried bones of humanity with flesh and blood. It cat turn clay into soul and make the dead live again.—But remember This needs sincere effort and honest endeavour. Efforts and sacrifice on our part, can herald a new era for mankind. Should we not strive for the noble goal: